I stared at Poirot. He smiled back at me.
"It beats me," I said at last, "what you expect to get out of that."
"You should employ your little gray cells," said Poirot gravely.
He rose and came across to the bench.
"It is that you have really the love of the machinery," he said, after inspecting the débris of my labors.
Every man has his hobby. I immediately drew Poirot's attention to my home-made wireless. Finding him sympathetic, I showed him one or two little inventions of my own—trifling things, but useful in the house.
"Decidedly," said Poirot, "you should be an inventor by trade, not a doctor. But I hear the bell—that is your patient. Let us go into the surgery."
Once before I had been struck by the remnants of beauty in the housekeeper's face. This morning I was struck anew. Very simply dressed in black, tall, upright and independent as ever, with her big dark eyes and an unwonted flush of color in her usually pale cheeks, I realized that as a girl she must have been startlingly handsome.
"Good-morning, mademoiselle," said Poirot. "Will you be seated? Dr. Sheppard is so kind as to permit me the use of his surgery for a little conversation I am anxious to have with you."
Miss Russell sat down with her usual composure. If she felt any inward agitation, it did not display itself in any outward manifestation.
[243]
